News

Gov. Patrick at Nantucket Memorial Airport today

(June 27, 2014)
Gov. Deval Patrick will
be at Nantucket Memorial Airport today, along with Massachusetts
Department of Transportation Aeronautics Division officials, to
launch the next step in the process of working to make the airport
the first and only carbon-neutral facility in the country.

Patrick, along with MassDOT secretary
and CEO Richard A. Davey, Volpe National Transportation System
officials, and Nantucket Memorial Airport officials will be speaking
at an event open to the public from 2 to 4 p.m. at Hangar 3,
followed by a question and answer session.

“We won the award about a year
ago . . . to become the nation's first carbon neutral airport,” said
NMA public-information officer Noah Karberg. “It comes with a lot
of assistance from MassDOT.”

Karberg said NMA won the award because
it had “demonstrated a commitment in the past to sustainability
measures, we were excited about it, and we were willing to commit
staff time to work on it.”

The project is currently in phase II,
which is the implementation stage. Initial projections show the
program could save 1,000 metric tons of carbon-dioxide, and generate roughly $3
million through selling renewable-energy credits associated with the
installation of solar energy panels, Karberg said.